


ENG 121

by amelianonymous



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: AU, M/M, TA Nursey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelianonymous/pseuds/amelianonymous
Summary: Dex has put off taking his English gen ed requirement until senior year because it was guaranteed to have two things he hated: papers and freshmen. But the class did have one upside in the form of Derek Nurse, the TA.(No-one says what they mean and Dex tries his best and still messes up. But one thing stays constant: freshmen are the worst.)





	ENG 121

“You don’t explain what you’re trying to say with the quote.” Nursey pointed to a paragraph on the paper.

“But isn’t it obvious? He’s literally saying that he hates her.” Still, Dex begrudgingly circled the line.

“You’re supposed to provide analysis with every quote. Maybe you were using it to show how the author uses hyperbole or something. I don’t know because you never explain it.” Nursey shrugged helplessly. 

Dex eyed him. It was time. Today was the day he’d ask Nursey if he wanted to eat lunch with him. It would be super casual. They’d been hanging out in Nursey’s TA office regularly for months. Eating together was the next logical step in their friendship. He could do this. “Hey do you want to—”

“Let’s get lunch.” Nursey threw out all nonchalant as if he hadn’t just rudely interrupted Dex asking the exact same thing. 

“I was in the middle of asking you if you wanted to get lunch, but sure, just go ahead and steal my thunder, it’s alright.” Dex muttered under his breath. 

“Oh, you were? I could barely hear you over the crickets.” Nursey was packing his bags, so Dex started to put away his stuff as well.

“All the crickets are gone now, it’s like November--You jerk. I wasn’t being quiet. Just because you can’t hear everything I say over your massive ego doesn’t mean—”

“I have a massive ego? What about you, Mr. Computer-Science-Major-Too-Good-To-Take-His-Freshman-English-Course-Until-His-Senior-Year?”

“That’s different, I was hoping to get out of this requirement—”

“By just ignoring it until it went away?” Nursey snorted. “And how’d that turn out for you? Oh, wait.” 

Dex rolled his eyes. 

They made their way out of the cramped office building, arguing all the while about where they should eat. In the end they settled on Annie’s, even though they agreed it was a little overpriced. 

“It’s worth it.” Nursey insisted.

Dex could practically hear his wallet screaming, but didn’t disagree; Annie’s really was a godsend. They argued all through lunch, but none of it was serious. They were having fun, or at least, Dex hoped they were. 

 

Dex had been called into Bitty’s apartment to try to calm Betsy into working condition. 

“Jack came into the bakery the other day, you know, the one I work at in the afternoon a couple days a week. He’s been coming in a lot lately. Sits in the corner, reading.” Bitty sighed from the doorway to the kitchen while Dex kept his eyes firmly on Besty’s innards laid out in front of him. “I wish… Well, it’d be nice if he’d actually say something to me. That boy doesn’t talk.”

“I thought he was a public figure. Doesn’t he have to talk?” Bitty had stuck around at Samwell to get an MBA in hopes that it’d help him get his business off the ground. For now, Bittle’s Baked Goods was in the planning stages. Dex had met Jack once. He had gone to visit Bitty at work and Jack had been standing at the counter, food in hand, watching as Bitty tried to talk him into taking a pie back for the team. He’d seemed like a good enough guy. In the end the Falconers got not just one but three pies. Bitty had beamed up at Jack and Jack… he had graciously accepted the various other desserts Bitty shoved on him while making vague noises about a nutritionist.

“Yes, he’ll talk about hockey, but Lord help you if you try to get him on any other subject. He’s stubborn like a mule and has about as many interests as a country road’s got lanes.” 

And then Dex walked into the most obvious trap ever constructed. “Why do you like him then?”

And Bitty was off to the races. Dex caught the words “dedicated,” “kind,” and “hockey butt.” The rest of it was all lost on him. It didn’t matter because Dex had spent the whole semester listening to Bitty admiring Jack, so he knew the cliff notes version. Because Bitty was polite, after he had waxed poetic about that one time Jack had lent him his jacket, he asked Dex how things had gone with Nursey, who was Dex’s favorite subject.

“We had lunch together. It was good.” One of the wires in the oven had worn treacherously thin. He’d have to fix that for sure. “We talked about the book signing coming up. He’s going to be there recording attendance again.”

“So you’re going to go.”

“I was going to go anyways.” Dex couldn’t hide the blush that crept across his face and onto his ears and neck. “I need all the extra credit I can get. I don’t want to have a B in ENG 121; that’d just be embarrassing.” 

Bitty leveled him a knowing look. “You aren’t pretending to struggle in this class just so you have an excuse to talk to a boy, are you?”

Dex huffed angrily. “No, of course not. I don’t think acting like an idiot is a good way to make a guy like you. Which, by the way, I am not doing. I am just trying to make friends in ENG 121 and, what with all the freshmen, it’s slim pickings. I wouldn’t talk to the guy otherwise.”

“Uh-huh.” Bitty crossed his arms over his chest.

“He’s aggravating and he thinks he has a lot of important things to say when he doesn’t. He’s pretentious as hell and he’s on the rowing team. The rowing team, Bitty, the rowing team. Like, how much more of an annoying rich guy could he be?” Dex himself was on the swimming and diving team, more for his scholarship than out of any real joy of the sport, and even his team was full of more rich, self-satisfied assholes than he’d prefer. He couldn’t imagine the hell that must be the rowing team. When Nursey had spilled that bit of information, Dex had snorted and asked why Nursey hadn’t gone to Oxford instead if he’d liked being an elitist prick so much. Dex had worried that he might have gone too far, but Nursey had laughed. As they insulted the rest of the rowing team together, Dex had found himself strangely charmed. He had to admit that there were many rich guys out there in the world more annoying than Nursey, but Bitty didn’t need to know that. 

Bitty hummed in disbelief, but changed the topic. 

 

Founder’s was deathly silent. It was a beautiful Saturday, so no students would voluntarily be in the library. This was a bad sign for the meet and greet the English department had arranged for some local author, but Dex took it as a good one. In his three years at Samwell he had found that his enjoyment of an event was inversely correlated with the number of freshmen present. Dex knew that correlation didn’t imply causation—he had to take his statistics credit just like everyone else—but he liked to think that unruly freshmen were the source of many of life’s greatest problems. The line at Annie’s was too long for him to get a cup of coffee before his next class? Freshmen. The library was too loud for him to study? Freshmen. He was in an inexplicable bad mood? ...Freshmen. Freshmen were probably the source off all of society’s ills, and one day when Dex was old and gray and didn’t have to worry about money anymore he’d sit down and prove it. In the meantime he would settle for cursing them lightly under his breath every time they ruined his life, like right now.

He had gone to Annie’s and bought two coffees, one for him and one for Nursey. He was carrying one in each hand and brainstorming some questions to ask the author for the inevitable moment when no-one had any. Everything was going fine; Nursey was in his sights, hunched over helping some mousy girl sign in. Nursey looked up, smiled at him, and started moving towards him, when the freshman asked a question. Nursey, distracted, tried to turn to her while still walking and, with an incredible grace rarely witnessed by humans, managed to trip over his own feet and fall onto Dex. Dex had done some quick mental calculus and made the decision that it was more important to stop Nursey from hurting himself than it was to save the coffee, so he dropped the coffee and stopped Nursey’s momentum. But Nursey managed to hit both coffee cups mid-air, somehow making them burst open and spill on both of them. There was a pause where they looked back and forth at each other, dripping with still-warm coffee. At least they hadn’t gotten burned, Dex thought sardonically. 

When Nursey found his balance, Dex’s hands flew off him he had been burned. Nursey’s eyes lingered on the coffee stain steadily spreading across Dex’s shirt as he considered their predicament. Dex was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable as his shirt started to cling. Nursey looked away. “I have to stay here and take attendance. Could you go grab us some clean shirts? I’ll put you down as present.”

Dex nodded and pulled off his shirt, trying to stop the coffee from spreading to his pants. He wanted to wring it out, but he couldn’t do that in the middle of the library. He made awkward eye contact with the visiting author and realized that being shirtless in a library was strange. Quickly, he said goodbye to Nursey, who must have been distracted because he didn’t respond. Coffee-soaked shirt in hand, Dex exited the library. 

It was a twenty minute round trip to his apartment and back. For himself he pulled out an old Samwell Swim Team shirt. He hunted through his closet for something for Nursey, but if he ignored all his swim team t-shirts all he had was plaid. He grabbed one that reminded him of Nursey for some reason. He tried not to obsess over it too much. Whatever. It would do. It was just a shirt. By the time he returned the author was ending her talk on the importance of self-expression or whatever. Dex snuck over to the table in the back where Nursey sat and passed him the shirt. 

“Oh man,” Nursey whispered. “A genuine Poindexter plaid. I feel honored.” 

He began lifting up his shirt, but the coffee had dried, making his shirt stiff, slowing him down as he tried to take it off. Dex looked away. “Yeah, just get it back to me when you can.”

Once the author opened up for questions, Dex glanced at Nursey. It was a flattering color, the same as his eyes.It fit well on him, it was long enough to cover his torso, a problem Dex often had with shirts. there was no excess room in the shoulders. Nursey filled out his shirt nicely, better, Dex thought, than he did. Suddenly, Dex got fidgety.This was all too much for a day where he hadn’t even gotten any caffeine into his system. When people started lining up for the signing, he made some hurried excuses to a worried-looking Nursey and left. 

 

Bitty dragged Dex to Providence to see Jack play. It was a great game, but watching Bitty and Jack make heart eyes at each other every five minutes sort of lessened the experience for him. When the game was over, Jack had approached them and awkwardly introduced some of his teammates. Tater and Snowy seemed like good guys and judging by the way they kept sending each other significant looks, they must have known about Jack’s crush on Bitty. Dex rolled his eyes. It was a good day. 

 

When Dex arrived at office hours on Monday, Nursey greeted him with a curse. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry, bro. I left your shirt at home. I’ll get it to you on Wednesday.”

In all honesty, Dex had forgotten about the shirt, or, more accurately, forgotten that Nursey was supposed to return it to him. The image of Nursey in plaid had haunted his waking hours and some of his non-waking ones. He’d had a weird stress dream where he was talking to an alligator made out of books that had morphed into Nursey in his shirt saying something about unhealthy metaphors for possession. “No rush.”

“Thanks, bro.” Nursey smiled wide. “You got your paper back from Dr. Harrison?”

Dex took his place in the chair across from Nursey’s and let out a gust of air. “Yeah, another B.”

“That’s fine. You didn’t like this book. That’s always going to affect your paper.” Nursey soothed him. “Chill.”

Dex huffed. “This is a freshman-level English class. I should be doing better.”

Nursey shrugged. “Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. You’re better at programming; I’m better at writing. The real problem would be if you were as good as I was. That would justify every disparaging comment I’ve ever heard about English majors.”

“I don’t need to be as good as you think you are, I just need to be better than these freshmen. Is that too much to ask?” 

“Excuse me, as good as I think I am? I was going to comfort you, provide solace, but now I don’t think I will. Instead I’ll let you know that many freshmen are better writers than you. I can’t name any names because of confidentiality, but trust me. There aren’t any James Joyce’s, but it doesn’t take much to be better than you.”

“I would think that writing like James Joyce wouldn’t help you much in a freshman English; in fact, it would probably hurt. And I have had to do group projects with them, Derek Nurse.” Nursey grimaced. “You cannot tell me these kids are better than me at anything, except maybe day drinking.” 

Nursey leaned forward like they were sharing an inside joke. “I think one of them actually showed up to class drunk once.”

“Class is at 10 a.m.” Dex’s head fell into his hands. “How do they even do that?”

“So the dark gods of the freshmen willed, and so it shall be,” Nursey said solemnly. 

Dex’s snort was muffled by his hands. He looked up. “What’s the next extra credit event?”

“Hm, it’s…” Nursey clicked around on his laptop and froze. He snapped out of it quickly, putting back on his calm facade. “It’s a poetry reading at Annie’s on Thursday.”

Dex wasn’t sure how to interpret Nursey’s momentary distress. He feigned like he hadn’t noticed it. “That’s really soon.”

“Yeah. I’d understand if you already had something planned. You don’t need to make it to all of these events, you know.” Nursey leaned back in his chair with an air of forced laziness.

“If I keep getting B’s on my papers, then yes, I do.” For every event before this one Nursey had encouraged him to come, complaining about the low attendance rate. 

Nursey chuckled. “But you hate poetry.”

“I don’t like YA romance but I went to that author’s thing.”

“It won’t even be good poetry, just a lot of ridiculous college kids who think they’re deep.” Nursey ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it a little. “Missing one of these isn’t going to do anything crazy; you’re already going to every other one.”

“Are you seriously discouraging me from academic enrichment? I thought you were supposed to be my TA,” Dex joked. Nursey shrugged, but he looked guilty. “Hey, if you don’t want me to go, I won’t go, okay? Just… can I know why you don’t want me to go?”

Nursey sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to be reading some of my own poetry, and it’s fine when it’s a bunch of people I don’t really know, but…” He shrugged again. “And it’s not like I don’t want you to go, I just… don’t want to know if you’re going to be there?”

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t go—”

“Let’s stop talking about this.” Nursey leaned his forearms onto the desk. “Get out your paper; we’ll pick it for things you need to do better in the next one.”

 

Things with Nursey were tense in a way they hadn’t been since the beginning of the semester when the two of them couldn’t stop fighting. If Dex ventured anywhere near the topic of extra credit, Nursey would change the subject to his next paper. On one hand, it was frustrating; on the other, this was probably going to be the best paper Dex had ever written. 

When Thursday arrived, Dex gave a sigh of relief. Without the poetry reading hanging over their heads, everything would go back to normal. He settled into his apartment to work on some code. Every so often his eyes would drift to the clock and he would note that if he hurried he could still make it to the poetry reading. The first time he had an hour left, then a half hour, fifteen minutes, ten, five, one… and he'd missed it. He watched the digital clock on his laptop click to the next minute. The event was over. 

He had wanted to go, but he wouldn’t do something that made Nursey uncomfortable. If that meant foregoing things he wanted to do, it was a price he would pay. He may want to listen to Nursey perform his poetry, but what he wanted more was for Nursey to be happy. If that meant Dex not being privy to parts of Nursey’s life, so be it. 

He sighed and went back to programming. He would make sure to ask how it went tomorrow. 

 

Dex’s chair in Nursey’s office wasn’t as comfy as it usuallly was, but that may have been the way Nursey was freezing him out. “Nursey?” He asked warily.

“How was your Thursday night?” Nursey’s eyes were shuttered.

Dex held onto the strap of his backpack. “Um, fine. How did the poetry reading go?” 

“Hm, I guess you wouldn’t know,” Nursey’s words were slow and deliberate. “seeing as how you didn’t go.” 

“...Yeah?”

Nursey pulled a collected works of Shakespeare out of his bag and slammed it on the desk. ”Look, Poindexter, if you don’t actually have a problem, you should go.”

“Nursey—”

“Other students need my attention, so I’d appreciate if you valued my time—”

Normally, Dex would fight back. If it were any other circumstance, he would have. But Nursey looked like he was hurt and Dex couldn’t— . “I forgot my essay at home. I guess I’ll just… leave, then.” 

 

“But I don’t understand why he’s mad at me, Bitty.” Dex lay on the kitchen floor staring up at the ceiling. “He told me he didn’t want me to go.”

“Now that’s not fair.” Bitty kicked aside a wrench to make space and sat down next to Dex. “You said that he said he didn’t want to know if you were going. Maybe it was one of those things where knowing for sure would make him nervous, but he still wanted you there, even though it would be nerve-wracking.”

“If he wanted me to go, why didn’t he say so?” Dex huffed.

“William Poindexter, you have no room to judge people for not communicating what they want clearly.” Bitty’s tone was giving Dex flashbacks to his mom.   
He looked away from Bitty. “It’s just…” He spun a washer through his fingers. “I don’t think I did anything wrong this time.” The washer fell to the tile with a clink and bounced. “Usually I mess things up by making a mistake, but this… I would do it again.. I guess I misjudged, but, honestly, I’m not sure I did. Like…” He tried to pick up the washer but it was just out of reach. Using a screwdriver, he pulled the washer towards him. “You know when you’re thinking about buying something and you’re not sure about it, so you’re standing in the store staring the thing down trying to figure out if you’ll use it or not, and you finally decide that if you’re spending so much brainpower trying to decide then you probably shouldn’t buy it?”

Bitty’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Are you the buyer here or Nursey?”

“What? Uh. Me, I guess.” His hand set down the screwdriver and wrapped around the washer. “Because I was thinking so much about whether or not to go, I probably shouldn’t have.” He shrugged and the washer bit into his clenching fist. “So I didn’t, because when I was thinking about going it was less about the poetry reading and more about…” The washer slid to rest between two of his fingers. “Trespassing.”

“Trespassing?” Bitty had his eyebrows raised.

Dex tapped the washer against the ground absently. “Yeah.” Tap. “Nursey and I, we have set boundaries,” Tap. “Mostly to prevent blow up fights because they stress Chowder too much.”

Bitty sighed, put-upon. “You’d have less fights if you’d stop playing devil’s advocate.”

Dex waved the washer in Bitty’s direction. “That’s beside the point.” He looked at the washer as if he only just realized he was holding it. “Anyways, Nursey recognized that sharing his poetry would be over the line we drew, and he felt uncomfortable by the idea of crossing it. So I guess he was the buyer? Whatever. But he couldn’t make the decision, couldn’t decide to buy it or put it back, so he passed the decision to me. And I think indecision is a bad sign, and…” He set the washer down. “we’re here.” 

The room was silent as Bitty digested what Dex had said. “Okay, I see what you mean, but Nursey not outright saying that he didn’t want you to go was also a sign. You didn’t necessarily do anything wrong, just…” He paused and his confused face came back. “Wait, in this scenario you’re the thing Nursey is considering buying?”

Dex groaned. “It’s a metaphor. Nursey isn’t thinking about buying me.”

“No, no, he’s thinking about destroying your current boundaries, or, dare I say it,” Bitty looked delighted. “taking your relationship to the next level.” 

Dex groaned louder and hid his burning face in his arm.

Bitty gasped. “Oh, no. Dex, he was trying to take your relationship to the next level and you rejected him.”

“No,” Dex shook his head. “No way. He wasn’t doing anything like that. That’s ridiculous.”   
But the idea stuck in his brain. It niggled at him as he walked home after consuming far too many pies. Maybe Bitty hadn’t been far off. Maybe Nursey had seen the poetry reading as a gateway to something more. He was English major; it was his job to overanalyze things. It was possible he had read rejection where Dex hadn’t intended to imply any. What a mess. How was he going to fix this? 

 

A swimming competition swallowed up his weekend. He got swept up in it and, in the whirlwind, he hardly had a second to contemplate what was going on with him and Nursey. It wasn’t until he was searching through his closet on Monday morning that he remembered that things were off. All of his plaid shirts stared back at him accusingly. He grabbed a simple plain tee out of spite, then closed the door harder than necessary and felt embarrassed about it. 

He stood outside Nursey’s office trying to decide what he could do to make it up to Nursey. Should he apologize? He hadn’t done anything wrong. If only he had brought one of Bitty’s pies; that would have helped no matter what. He was just going to have to wing it. 

He went to open the door, but he was shocked to find it locked. Had there been an announcement…? He checked his email. Nursey had sent a message saying he wouldn’t have office hours today because he was sick. Self-doubt crept in. Maybe Nursey was avoiding him. He hovered outside the office for a moment before turning away. He needed to talk with Chowder.

 

“Yeah, Nursey had a fever on Saturday,” Chowder said around a mouth full of pizza. “But I thought he was feeling better by Sunday.”

“Maybe it got worse again.” Dex worried. Nursey was clumsy when he was healthy, Lord only knows how bad he got when he was illl.

Chowder hummed. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll go check on him.” Chowder, the lucky bastard, had only one class on Mondays. When Dex had complained, Chowder had winked and said it took careful planning. Dex, who had just gotten out of his four Monday classes and had no remaining capacity for patience, had glowered back. 

“Oh? Can I come with?” Dex could stop by Bitty’s and grab a get-well-soon pie.

“I was going to go by myself,” A weird look passed over Chowder’s face before changing into a smile, “but sure!”

 

Bitty had been endearingly concerned for Nursey’s condition, so when Dex met back up with Chowder on the edge of campus he was carrying two pies, a tin of cookies and a thermos filled with hot soup.

Chowder looked at the food longingly. “Do you think Nursey’ll share?”

Nursey lived in a small brownstone less than a mile off the northernmost part of campus. They walked together in silence. Dex had been surprised to find out that Chowder also knew Nursey at the beginning of the semester. 

“Yeah,” Chowder had told him. “I kept trying to get you guys together for events, but one of you would always drop out last minute, totally not swawesome. It’s crazy that you guys are only meeting now.”

Chowder had met Nursey in his art elective the very same semester that Dex had met Chowder in intro to programming. Chowder was right, it was crazy that they had spent so long on the periphery of each other's lives. Three years… he could have gotten to know Nursey three years ago. Suddenly he ached for that. The three of them could have been a trio of best friends, like Chowder had been trying to make happen. Instead Dex had only met him a few months ago and already he had bungled it up. He sighed. He was trying to fix it and that was all he could do. People said he was good at fixing things; maybe that would apply to this, too. He could only hope it would.

Chowder rang the doorbell. There was a muffled crashing noise and then the door opened to reveal a tired-looking Nursey. He nodded at Chowder before his gaze caught on Dex. He almost said something, but Dex held out the thermos and desserts like a peace offering and he sighed instead. He waved them inside. “Come on in.”

Nursey led them to a couch that was covered in a mess of blankets. He shoved them aside to make space for Chowder to sit and then burrowed into them. Dex was left sitting in a rickety wooden chair that looks like Nursey must have picked it up off the curb. It was uncomfortable, but that was fine with Dex. He was going to be uncomfortable anyways. He set the baked goods on the floor and passed the thermos to Nursey, who began sipping on it.

“Tell Bits thanks for me.” He mumbled, running a hand down his face. “Sorry for missing office hours, I slept terribly—”

Dex shook his head. “It’s fine. I don’t need help anyways.” 

“Yeah,” Nursey smiled ruefully. “You never did.”

Shit. “That’s an exaggeration.” 

“Nah, man.” Nursey snuggled further into his blanket cocoon and popped the collar on his… plaid shirt. Dex’s plaid shirt. What? Dex’s eyes flicked back and forth   
from the bit of plaid peeking out from the blankets and Nursey’s sleepy eyes. “You’d have done fine without me. Chill. It’s a freshman-level English gen ed.”

Chowder squirmed. “I’m going to get out stuff so we can get started on that pie.” He got up and went to the kitchen.

When he disappeared around the corner, Dex shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Um… Sorry for not going to the poetry reading thing. I thought you didn’t want me to. I was trying to respect your boundaries…”

Nursey raised an eyebrow. “You come to my house unannounced and talk about respecting boundaries?”

Dex flushed. “That’s a fair point.” 

“I can’t talk, though, can I?’ He set the thermos on a side table and stretched his arms above his head, showing off the green plaid. “I still haven’t given you your shirt back.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to.” Dex lamented that it seemed like his face wouldn’t stop burning any time soon. “And I don’t think that’s an equivalent situation. I can leave if you want me to.”

“That’s not all.” Nursey sighed, bringing his arms to rest on top of the mound of blankets. “I was nervous about you coming to the poetry reading because a lot of my poems recently have a common… theme.”

Dex was shaking his head. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Dex, I’ll decide what I do and don’t want to do.” Nursey said exasperatedly. “The theme was you. They’re all about you. And I was nervous that you’d go and hear me and figure out that I…” He shrugged. 

Chowder was banging around in the kitchen excessively. Drawers opened and closed, rattling their contents. Nursey’s collar fell. Dex stared at it. There was a break in the sounds coming from the kitchen and Chowder returned with plates and silverware and a forced smile. They ate the pie while Chowder and Nursey chatted about hockey. Dex couldn’t speak. He gazed at his half-finished pie. He wished he had a washer to wind through his fingers. Communication wasn’t his strong suit; that was why he struggled with papers. Words deserted him regularly. He wished they wouldn’t this time, this time was important. He couldn’t mess this up. Nursey was right; he couldn’t decide what Nursey would want, he could only decide what he wanted. 

He could see Bitty’s judgy face. If he was being honest, he already knew what he wanted, had known for a while. Why else would he have gone to all those office hours? Why would he have spent so long talking with Bitty about Nursey? There was something about Nursey that Dex couldn’t ignore. There was something about him that got to Dex and wouldn’t let go, and Dex didn’t want it to. 

The pie was finished. Chowder began saying his goodbyes. It was time to go, but Dex wasn’t ready. 

“You head on out, I’m going to clean up a little and take dishes back to Bitty.” He said. 

They all said their goodbyes and Chowder left, a few cookies in hand. Dex took the empty pie tin to the kitchen and began washing it. 

Nursey hovered in the doorway. “So…” 

Dex tensed up, shoulders hunched over as he scrubbed at the dish. 

“Bro, chill.” Dex rolled his eyes. “Is this your plan? To not talk about it?”

Dex huffed. “You chill. I’m going to talk about it, just give me a minute.”

Nursey left and came back with the thermos. Quietly, he fished a spoon out of a drawer and began eating. Washing up didn’t take long. Soon enough Dex was left standing over an empty sink. There were a lot of places he could go with this, but he didn’t think he could pull them off. He couldn’t do any kind of declaration. If he tried, he’d mess it up, like Ginny Weasley levels of pathetic, comparing Nursey’s eyes to pickled toads or something, but he wouldn’t have the excuse of being eleven. 

Dex faced Nursey. “Are you busy on Friday?” 

“Are you asking me out?” Nursey raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know if that counts as talking.”

Dex shrugged. “I like you. Do you need more words?”

Nursey set down the thermos and approached Dex. “I’d appreciate them. I’m an English major after all.” 

Dex gave him an exasperated look. “Jesus Christ, Nursey. You’re so needy.” He sighed and then rethought what he said. “Sorry, no, you’re not… like… um… I’m not good with words, so keep that in mind, but if it’s important to you… I dreaded taking this class, it’s got a lot of things I don’t like: literary analysis, metaphors, writing, freshmen. But you made it more tolerable. And you’re right, I didn’t need to get your help with every paper, but I wanted it because you’re great and smart and you make overanalyzing almost fun and you get passionate about it and your eyes light up… and I like your eyes,” he blushed. “and that shirt looks good on you.”

“Circumlocution.” Nursey hummed approvingly. “I’ll take it.” 

“What?”

“I’m free Friday. What do you have in mind?”

“I… hadn’t thought that far ahead.” Dex admitted. 

Nursey laughed. “Honestly, I’m dead tired. We’ll come up with something. Text me.”

“Can’t. I don’t have your number.” 

“Chowder hasn’t given it to you? Damn, I thought he would’ve done that ages ago what with how much he’s tried to get us together.” He took Dex’s phone, entered   
his number and handed it back.

“You mean like for the past two years or…?” Dex sent a quick text to Nursey and his phone buzzed in the other room.

“Nah, for the past month or so. You haven’t noticed?” Leaning against the wall, Nursey chuckled. “He’s invited me to a lot of horror movies lately.”  
Dex shrugged. “Same, but Chris hates horror movies so I always turned him down.” 

“Yeah, Chris never intended to actually stick around for the movie. It was more of a set up for us to go to the movies together.” Nursey smiled fondly. “I really am beat though. I’m going to take a nap.” He jerked his head in the direction of the door. “Get out of my house.”

“Okay, yeah.” Dex grabbed the pie dish. “Hope you feel better soon.”

Nursey smiled lazily and followed Dex to the door. “See you on Friday.”

“Yeah.” Dex lingered in front of the doorway. He felt a little off-balance, like there was something he’d forgotten.

Nursey rolled his eyes and pulled Dex in for a quick kiss. “Chill.” Nursey said in a distinctly un-chill voice. “I’m going to go to sleep now.”  
Nursey closed the door hurriedly, leaving Dex standing on the tiny concrete square that constituted his stoop. For a moment, Dex was stunned, not really processing what had happened, and then he turned a brilliant red. 

 

Bitty had been delighted to hear that Dex had asked Nursey out. He had been less delighted when a second later Dex, unaware that said hockey player was standing not fifteen feet away, told him that he should ask out Jack. After Dex vociferously apologized to Bitty, Jack quietly invited Bitty out to dinner. While Bitty was distracted, Dex made himself scarce. After that Bitty and Jack’s relationship was idyllic and although the same couldn’t be said for Dex and Nursey’s, it was still great. Everything seemed to be on the up-and-up. His phone buzzed and he checked it hopefully, ,and then smiled when he saw it was from Nursey.

Nursey: semesters almost over  
Nursey: lol so glad to not be ur ta anymore. it was kinda awkward lol  
Nursey: yo whats ur class schedule for next semester?  
Nursey: Heres mine  
Nursey: scheduleimage.jpeg

With mounting horror he stared at the photo of his laptop screen Nursey had for some reason decided to take with his phone. This could not be happening to him. No way could he be this unlucky. But there it was, staring up at him: MA 134.

Dex: I see you’re taking MA 134. Funny for a guy that made fun of me for pushing off a gen ed all of last semester.  
Dex: Who’s your prof?   
Nursey: you caught me.  
Nursey: Daniels

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Dex checked his own schedule just to make sure before he sent off the text.

Dex: Funny thing.  
Dex: Remember how I told you I’d be TA’ing?  
Nursey: ur kidding  
Nursey: dex  
Nursey: MA 134 section 2?  
Dex: Yeah.  
Dex: Guess we’ll have to deal with this TA stuff for another semester.  
Nursey: fuck

Dex huffed a laugh. At least it was an intro calculus class, easy as they come. There was no way math could be worse than English. (Spoiler: It was.)


End file.
